Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said 105 missiles were launched by air and sea, all hitting their targets within minutes.

The UK debate comes as the European Union’s foreign ministers joined together to say they understood the need for the airstrikes and called for a new push for a political solution to the war in Syria.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the United States military had kept its strikes limited because it knew a wider attack would spark retaliation from Damascus and its allies and inflame the region.

Missile fire over Damascus, Syria, on the morning of the attack. “Trump did it to save face”.

Iran also issued strong statements early Saturday condemning the strikes.

Russian Federation and Iran called the use of force by the United States and its French and British allies a “military crime” and “act of aggression”.

The official IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying The U.S. and “some Western countries do not want Syria to reach permanent stability”. The U.K. Defense Ministry said the strikes were “successful”. “This is going to set the Syrian chemical weapons program back for years”, McKenzie said in a press briefing.

But Johnson stressed the “overwhelming purpose” of the mission was a response to a series of chemical attacks in recent years.

“Our worst apprehensions have come true”.

The U.S. -led operation won broad Western support. In a USA military action a year ago in response to a sarin gas attack, missiles took out almost 20 percent of the Syrian air force, the Pentagon said.

The strikes appeared to have taken place far from Russia’s bases near the Syrian coast.

A senior Russian diplomat said on Monday that the mission from the worldwide chemical weapons watchdog can not access the site of an alleged chemical attack near the Syrian capital without an appropriate United Nations permit. “None of the airfields suffered significant damage” in the attack due to being protected by the air defense systems, he added.

French authorities said the allies don’t seek any military escalation, nor confrontation with Russian Federation.

They have said the attack in Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta area near the capital, Damascus, was staged.

“It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria – and to uphold and defend the global consensus that these weapons should not be used. And on Wednesday is when we plan the arrival of the OPCW experts”, a senior Russian official said in The Hague on Monday.

The crisis in Syria-the chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, followed by the limited U.S. -U.K. -France military response-creates an opportunity to develop the broader Syria strategy the West now lacks.

“If and when such a thing were to happen then clearly, with allies, we would study what the options were”, he said.

May will address Parliament – where she doesn’t have a majority – next week.

Next week, he is to become the first foreign leader to be hosted by Donald Trump on a state visit.

Moscow blamed the delay on the air strikes, in which the US, France and Britain targeted what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities.